Exposing some of the unsavory claims that Tom Cruise, John Travolta and other celebrities would rather you didn't know about Scientology For nearly 20 years, Tom Cruise has been Hollywood's Golden Boy. The star of Top Gun," "Risky Business" and, most recently, "The War of the Worlds," Cruise has attributed his vast success to being a follower of Scientology, a self-help movement-turned-religion which claims the ability to "clear" its followers from all their problems. It seemed like the perfect match: the ...

The Dutch Attorney-General has endorsed a verdict seen as backing free speech over copyright in the controversial case between the Church of Scientology and writer Karin Spaink, Dutch ISP Xs4all reports. The Dutch Supreme Court, which will rule on this case on 8 July, had asked the Attorney-General for advice. The Church of Scientology sued Karin Spaink and her internet service provider Xs4all Internet BV after Spaink posted Scientology documents on her website. In the early 1990s, former Scientologist Steven Fishman, ...

IT WAS WITH some astonishment that I read this week that a Dutch court ruled on September 4 that writer Karin Spaink could keep the Scientology materials on her Web site. The original case, in which this is the third ruling, began in the Pleistocene era in Internet terms — nine years ago. I had no idea it was still doing the Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce thing. I spent much of 1994 — when the Web was Usenet, the king was CompuServe, ...

The Church of Scientology has lost a courtroom battle to compel a Dutch writer and her Internet service provider to remove postings from a Web site, in a ruling that keeps hyperlinks to copyrighted material legal. On Friday, the Dutch Court of Appeal in The Hague, Netherlands, denied the Scientologists' latest appeal in an online copyright dispute that dates back to 1995. The Church of Scientology has repeatedly pursued legal action in the Netherlands against the writer, Karin Spaink, and her ...

The Court of Appeal in The Hague last week rejected all of the Church of Scientology's claims its action against the Dutch ISP Xs4all, writer Karin Spaink and ten other internet providers for publishing copyrighted material on the web. As a result, Spaink's website which Scientologists had sought to remove, is entirely legal. The court also overturned two lower court rulings, one of which stated that linking to material that infringed a copyright was itself actionable. The victory for Xs4all represents ...

The Church of Scientology has lost a courtroom battle to compel a Dutch writer and her Internet service provider to remove postings from a Web site, in a ruling that keeps hyperlinks to copyrighted material legal. On Friday, the Dutch Court of Appeal in The Hague, Netherlands, denied the Scientologists' latest appeal in an online copyright dispute that dates back to 1995. The Church of Scientology has repeatedly pursued legal action in the Netherlands against the writer, Karin Spaink, and her ...

Geek paradise Slashdot has taken the unprecedented step of removing a post which contained text allegedly copyrighted by the 'Church' of Scientology, after receiving threats from Hubbard Space Command shysters citing the dreaded Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). "Our lawyers have advised us that, considering all the details of this case, the comment should come down," Slashdot founder Rob Malda aka CmdrTaco regrets to announce. "Last Saturday a comment was posted here by an anonymous reader that contained text that was ...

RUTGERS UNIVERSITY SOCIOLOGY professor Benjamin Zablocki has been studying cults–now called, thanks to academic political correctness, new religious movements, or NRMs–since his graduate school days at Johns Hopkins during the mid-1960s, when he bought a ninety-nine dollar Greyhound bus pass and traveled around the country visiting all the religious communes he could find. "My style of research is participant observation," he explains. "I live with the groups, wash dishes with them, pray with them, and immerse myself in their way of ...

A web of intrigue surrounds the high-stakes legal brawl between FACTnet and the Church of Scientology. Strange things happen around Lawrence Wollersheim. His businesses collapse. His Boulder apartment gets raided by federal marshals, his computers seized. When college students offer to help him rebuild his computer bulletin-board system, they receive threatening phone calls–anonymous voices urging them to stay away from Larry. A California judge who presided over a lawsuit in which Wollersheim was the plaintiff told reporters he'd encountered a lot ...

It is simply untrue to state that I did not bother to contact a Church of Scientology representative. I conducted a one-and-a-half-hour interview with Earle Cooley, a leading lawyer for the church — and, based on his past statements, a member. He described for me in great detail his work for the church and his view of a number of church policies and doctrines. What is he if not a church representative? Cooley and his relationship to Boston University was the ...

In "BU's Scientology Connection" (News, April 19), Dan Kennedy tried to make an issue out of Scientology by questioning whether Mr. Earle Cooley, an attorney who has represented the Church of Scientology and is also a Boston University trustee, is a Scientologist. Next, Kennedy will be inquiring whether the president of IBM is a Catholic or demanding how many New York judges are Muslims. Kennedy tries to hang his anti-Scientology diatribe on Mr. Cooley's representation of the church, but he cannot ...

The Church of Scientology has waged a war in cyberspace to keep its secret documents from being seen, and it is on the Internet that some of its best insights can be found. * alt.religion.scientology is the most active cyberstation. Church critics and supporters post several hundred messages a day, and anonymous critics such as the notorious "Scamizdat" upload copyrighted Scientology documents they have obtained. Church critics charge that Scientologists have illegally forged "cancel" messages to erase these postings. Church lawyer ...

To Scientologists, Steven Fishman is an apostate who's spread vicious lies about the church to which he used to belong. To church critics, he's a hero who's exposed the truth about Scientology. Evaluating Fishman's credibility is difficult, to say the least. He's an ex-convict who served a prison term for financial crimes that he claims he was ordered to commit. Church officials deny there was any such order, and they deny just about everything else Fishman has said about his old ...

IN THE ONLINE BRAWL OVER SCIENTOLOGY, INTERNET USERS DISCOVER THAT VIRTUAL REALITY BITES BACK.SHOWDOWN IN CYBERSPACE THE BATTLE OVER SCIENTOLOGY'S SECRETS IGNITES A HOLY WAR ON THE INTERNET. Lawrence Wollersheim's hands shake as he reads his notes, ticking off the damage done to his computers. Surrounding the 46-year-old Boulder resident is a cluster of reporters and, beyond that, a ring of glowering, dark-suited men (and one woman wearing a clerical collar), all packed into a hallway of the federal courthouse in ...

It was 9:30 and Arnie Lerma was lounging in his living room in Arlington, drinking his Saturday morning coffee, hanging. Suddenly, a knock at the door — who could it be at this hour? — and boom, before he could force anything out of his mouth, they were pouring into his house: federal marshals, lawyers, computer technicians, cameramen. They stayed for three hours last Saturday. They inventoried and confiscated everything Lerma cherished: his computer, every disk in the place, his client ...

On the verge of a trial, the Church of Scientology has settled a $40-million federal lawsuit against its former publicity agent, Hill & Knowlton, and foe Eli Lilly and Co. for an undisclosed sum of money. "All parties acknowledged that they are pleased that the case has been settled," said a statement from the Church of Scientology International in Los Angeles. The agreement requires confidentiality, said Kurt Weiland, a director of the Church of Scientology International and head of its Office ...

Exclusive A former cult security guard blows apart the star's squeaky clean image with claims of shocking abuse HOLLYWOOD megastar Tom Cruise has been sensationally named in a multi-million dollar lawsuit in the United States alleging receipt of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of illicit perks from the controversial Scientology religious cult. The 32-year-old Oscar winner is alleged to have turned a blind eye to the use of slave labour to build him a gym, an apartment and other gifts ...

[Picture / Caption: RESOLUTION — "I think the judge just wanted to bring an end to this case," says Graham E. Berry, right, with Gordon J. Calhoun.] For years, the Church of Scientology has been synonymous with bitter litigation battles. But the 40-year-old religious organization, long known for its aggressive legal tactics, threw in the towel recently on a federal lawsuit in Los Angeles that it had been waging against two critics. Besides serving as a legal setback, the action in ...

[Transcribed by Anonymous <nowhere@bsu-cs.bsu.edu> 21 May 1995 07:35:27 +0100] The Church of Scientology may call itself a religion, but it does not have a reputation for turning the other cheek. For a week last month Jon Atack and his family were subjected to scenes like this outside their home in Cranston Road, East Grinstead. Why? The placard-carrying demonstrators are Scientologists, and they do not like Mr. Atack because he is an outspoken critic of the cult. The police were twice called ...

GRAHAM E. BERRY, State Bar No. 128503 GORDON J. CALHOUN, State Bar No. 84509 LEWIS, D'AMATO, BRISBOIS & BISGAARD 221 N. Figueroa Street, Suite 1200 Los Angeles, California 90012 Telephone: (213) 250-1800 Attorneys for Defendants UWE GEERTZ, PH.D. UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT CENTRAL DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA No. CV 91-6426 HLH (Tx) DECLARATION OF VICKI AZNARAN RE: MOTION FOR COSTS Date: APRIL 4, 1994 Time: 10:00 a.m. Courtroom: 7 CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY INTERNATIONAL, Plaintiff, VS. STEVEN FISHMAN and UWE GEERTZ, Defendants. —– ...

The Church of Scientology uses private detectives and bulldog litigators to pursue its numerous detractors. It also hires low-key establishment lawyers who work quietly within the system. So who is directing the $416 million libel suit against Time? On April 27, 1992, lawyers for the Church of Scientology International filed a $416 million libel action in federal court in New York against Time Warner, Inc., Time Inc. Magazine Company [Time Warner is a partner in American Lawyer Media, L.P.], and writer ...

By all appearances, Noah Lottick of Kingston, Pa., had been a normal, happy 24-year-old who was looking for his place in the world. On the day last June when his parents drove to New York City to claim his body, they were nearly catatonic with grief. The young Russian-studies scholar had jumped from a 10th-floor window of the Milford Plaza Hotel and bounced off the hood of a stretch limousine. When the police arrived, his fingers were still clutching $171 in ...

After eight years at Headquarters, I am "moving on" to other work. My duties as Director of Public Affairs will be handled by Taj. Hamad and Linda Shapiro although I will try to continue to work, with many of the contacts I have made/over the years. For me, they are much more than professional contacts—they are my friends. Thus, my change in mission does not mean I will forget my friends. Those relationships will continue and hopefully flourish for many years ...